Tennessee football report card: Grading the Vols in their win over ETSU

Tennessee football’s first win of the season came against the East Tennessee State University Buccaneers. Here are the Volunteers’ grades from the game.

It’s hard to take any positive seriously from a win over an FCS team. But when you’re Tennessee football, and when you’ve lost eight of nine, you’ll take what you can get. Such is the case from the Vols’ dominant 59-3 win over the East Tennessee State University Buccaneers Saturday.

The win was the first of the Jeremy Pruitt era as well, which by itself is a positive. Coming off a blowout 40-14 loss to the West Virginia Mountaineers, it was exactly what this team needed to gain some confidence and momentum.

But how do we praise each unit when they played a program like ETSU? Well, we’ll do what we did in Tennessee football’s opener against WVU. That means taking a look at the opponents’ strengths, whatever they may be, and what each unit was up against.

This will be the basis for our second report card this year. Yes, I know getting a good grade in this game is like getting an A in gym class. However, there were indeed a few positive takeaways. ANd there were also some clear negatives.

Those negatives were obviously more clear in a game like this. As a result, the report card is not all roses in a 59-3 win. That may shock you, but the Vols definitely showed they have things that they can improve upon.

Of course, with a bad team like the UTEP Miners coming to town this week, they have more chances to improve with easy competition. After all, this is one of the worst teams in FBS, barely a step above ETSU.

So where were the Vols’ biggest strengths this past Saturday? What areas do they need to get better? How serious can we take the play of any position group. Let’s break this all down here in the Tennessee football report card against the Bucs.